Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2001 18:35:27 -0700 (PDT)
From: Thomas Seay <entheogens-AT-yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: AUT: Why People Join Vanguard Organizations?


--- Richard Bailey <redrich2000-AT-yahoo.com> wrote:
> That is the most patronising bullshit I have ever
> read.

I am sorry.  I did not mean to be patronizing. 
However, dont you think that vanguard parties are
patronizing to both its cadre and the rest of us?
I mean, a vanguard party considers its members to
be the "advanced" portion of the working class...the
ones that are going to lead us unenlightened masses
to liberation.  Isn't there something patronizing
about that? I mean, we all have ideas about what needs
to be done...and we may form into groups to discuss
them and share those ideas with others...but to
declare that you are THE group is another story.

Also, the way democratic centralism works in practice
usually means that you have a brain center ( a central
committee, usualy residing in New York if you are the
US vanguard) that pretty much makes all the decisions
on "line"...and then you have the cadre who are foot
soldiers who go about disseminating "the line".  Isn't
there something patronizing about that? Isn't
socialism supposed to be about greater direct
democracy?
Then what is the purpose of this mediating
bureaucracy...THE vanguard party.....the Central
Committee.

> I joined because I happen to think that a
> revolutionary party is critical to achieving a
> successful revolution. Disagree if you want but
> don't
> accuse me of seeking a social circle.

Well, I did not mean that the ONLY reason one joins
such a group is for social reasons.  I was only
initiating the discussion on a prompt from commie00.

> 
> Not everyone who joins initally has this level of
> committment. Most join because it is leninist
> organisations that are usually the most visibly
> active
> and because they ask people to join them.

That's true...they are the most visible and I think it
is important that other non-vanguard organizations
start to be more visible.

> 
> Your understanding of how leninist organisations
> does
> not reflect my experience of the ISO (and I do have
> criticisms of it). 

Let's hear then about your experience in the ISO and
your criticisms.  Remember, probably more than a few
of us on this list have belonged to various "vanguard"
organizations in the past.  What are your criticisms?

>>We are not all like the> Spartacist League.

That's too bad because the Sparticist League is at
least good for a nice chuckle.


-Thomas

===="The tradition of all the dead generations
 weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living"

-Karl Marx

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